Tag: empathy

Understanding without filters

Posted on by philipdodson

We all have a deep need to be seen and understood. Yet we spend so little time understanding others.

We are wrapped up in our needs and we have this expectation that others are seeing us as important. We expect others to understand us, but we are not prepared to understand them.

Equally, we do not communicate with others, we isolate ourselves, close ourselves off and then still expect others to understand us.

It is always better to start from a position of no expectation of others, it stops us from becoming disappointed and releases them from the burden of our expectations.

We have to be first to understand others and that requires us to listen. Listening is a challenge for us all as we are not taught how to listen properly. True listening is being silent, listening to the other person from our hearts and listening to them how we would want others to listen to us…fully and completely without judgement, evaluation or interruption. Listening isn’t about a pause for us to think about what to say next, it isn’t about evaluating what the other person is saying, it isn’t about us or how it might affect us.

People want to be heard and seen not told and fixed. They do not want to hear about our story or for their story to be judged or corrected. Their truth is theirs, and their story is theirs. We are not the arbiter of that, or the person to correct what we have judged to be wrong about it. Our role is to listen to them empathetically and from a place of love, allowing them to be seen and know that they have been understood.

It is one soul seeing the soul of another and connecting with them as one without the filters of our minds.

A difficult path always leads us to where we want to go in life

Posted on by philipdodson

A difficult path always leads us to where we want to go in life.

Our lack of confidence in ourselves leads us to overthink and analyse everything, to the point that it becomes exhausting and causes us to suffer a great deal.

When we are constantly worried about the reactions to our actions it paralyses us and leads us to act in a way that is not true to ourselves. We say and do things or we don’t say or do things to avoid being in the limelight and to stay safe as we see it.

This prohibition of showing our real selves causes more suffering as we always feel like we are holding back and our soul wants to speak out and share its truth, but the mind fears the reactions. It creates sabotage and excuses as to why we should not be true to ourselves.

When we act in a non-authentic way to minimise what we fear will be others’ reactions to us, we actually create a further lessening of self-confidence as people are not comfortable with our lack, we are not showing our real selves, so that actually causes people to move away from us more. They sense our lack of confidence and then we feel their reaction to us and it only goes to confirm the stories in our minds of not being worthy, not being liked and not being loved.

It becomes a vicious circle, a self-fulfilling prophecy. We create a worsening of our own self-confidence based on our starting position of uncertainty and fear.

It is a challenging loop to break, it takes a great deal of bravery and a willingness to be vulnerable and not fear others’ reactions to our truth. Of course, our truth needs to be shared with empathy, kindness and compassion. However, our truth will come from our heart and therefore, it will always come from a place of love.

This is all easily written here in a blog and a great deal harder to practice in real life. I struggle with it and have come to realise, like any practice, we have to build it step by step, day by day, moment by moment and the more we practice the easier it becomes and the stronger our confidence will come.

When we speak our truth some will, of course, move on and not feel comfortable with it. However, our people will be attracted to our truth and that is what matters. Equally, we will be able to love ourselves fully for being vulnerable, willing to show up and to live a life of integrity.

Again, this is not an easy thing, however, vulnerability is meant to be difficult because anything that requires commitment and bravery will always lead us to the things that truly matter in life. There is a warrior spirit in us all, a loving, nurturing, strong and caring one, that when it rises will help us to be able to become our true selves, to be authentic and to share our light and gifts with the world.

A difficult path always leads to where we want to go in life.